Linda Mussmann, left, and Claudia Bruce, who have been together more than 35 years and want to be the first same-sex couple married under the new law, inside Time and Space Limited in Hudson Wednesday, July 20, 2011. (John Carl D'Annibale / Times Union)

Linda Mussmann, left, and Claudia Bruce, who have been together more than 35 years and want to be the first same-sex couple married under the new law, inside Time and Space Limited in Hudson Wednesday, July

Claudia Bruce and Linda Mussmann, who have been together more than 35 years and want to be the first same-sex couple married under the new law, outside Time and Space Limited in Hudson Wednesday July 20, 2011. (John Carl D'Annibale / Times Union)

Claudia Bruce and Linda Mussmann, who have been together more than 35 years and want to be the first same-sex couple married under the new law, outside Time and Space Limited in Hudson Wednesday July 20, 2011.

Claudia Bruce and Linda Mussmann, who have been together more than 35 years and want to be the first same-sex couple married under the new law, outside Time and Space Limited in Hudson Wednesday July 20, 2011. (John Carl D'Annibale / Times Union)

Claudia Bruce and Linda Mussmann, who have been together more than 35 years and want to be the first same-sex couple married under the new law, outside Time and Space Limited in Hudson Wednesday July 20, 2011.

Linda Mussmann, left, and Claudia Bruce, who have been together more than 35 years and want to be the first same-sex couple married under the new law, at their Time and Space Limited theater in Hudson Wednesday July 20, 2011. (John Carl D'Annibale / Times Union)

Linda Mussmann, left, and Claudia Bruce, who have been together more than 35 years and want to be the first same-sex couple married under the new law, at their Time and Space Limited theater in Hudson Wednesday July 20, 2011. (John Carl D'Annibale / Times Union)

Linda Mussmann, left, and Claudia Bruce kiss at the start of their midnight ceremony at their Time & Space Limited arts center in Hudson Saturday July 23, 2011. (John Carl D'Annibale / Times Union)

Linda Mussmann, left, and Claudia Bruce kiss at the start of their midnight ceremony at their Time & Space Limited arts center in Hudson Saturday July 23, 2011. (John Carl D'Annibale / Times Union)

Photo: John Carl D'Annibale

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Claudia Bruce, and Linda Mussmann, at right, walk down the aisle at their midnight ceremony at their Time & Space Limited arts center in Hudson Saturday July 23, 2011. (John Carl D'Annibale / Times Union)

Claudia Bruce, and Linda Mussmann, at right, walk down the aisle at their midnight ceremony at their Time & Space Limited arts center in Hudson Saturday July 23, 2011. (John Carl D'Annibale / Times Union)

Photo: John Carl D'Annibale

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Claudia Bruce, left, and Linda Mussmann sign their marrige licence under the supervision of Hudson City Clerk Tracy Delaney, at right, duting their midnight ceremony at their Time & Space Limited arts center in Hudson Saturday July 23, 2011. (John Carl D'Annibale / Times Union) less

Claudia Bruce, left, and Linda Mussmann sign their marrige licence under the supervision of Hudson City Clerk Tracy Delaney, at right, duting their midnight ceremony at their Time & Space Limited arts center in ... more

Photo: John Carl D'Annibale

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Hudson Mayor Richard Scalera points to the time on the marriage license of Claudia Bruce and Linda Mussmann after their midnight wedding ceremony at their Time & Space Limited arts center in Hudson Saturday July 23, 2011. (John Carl D'Annibale / Times Union) less

Hudson Mayor Richard Scalera points to the time on the marriage license of Claudia Bruce and Linda Mussmann after their midnight wedding ceremony at their Time & Space Limited arts center in Hudson Saturday ... more

Photo: John Carl D'Annibale

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Hudson Mayor Richard Scalera points to the time on the marriage license of Claudia Bruce and Linda Mussmann after their midnight wedding ceremony at their Time & Space Limited arts center in Hudson Saturday July 23, 2011. (John Carl D'Annibale / Times Union) less

Hudson Mayor Richard Scalera points to the time on the marriage license of Claudia Bruce and Linda Mussmann after their midnight wedding ceremony at their Time & Space Limited arts center in Hudson Saturday ... more

Photo: John Carl D'Annibale

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A long wait ends in a rush

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Hudson

Thirty-five years, and suddenly everything rushed forward, a surging wave of logistics. There was hardly time to contemplate the significance of validating 35 years of love and commitment when they were trying to be the first same-sex couple to be married in New York.

Two wedding officiants. A stage manager who carried a clock taped to a bamboo pole to alert the couple and their 150-200 guests to the creeping presence of midnight, a stroke of a minute hand that would make history very early Sunday.

Linda Mussmann and Claudia Bruce had spent their week in a stupor, fighting off the sweltering temperatures at Time & Space Limited -- the former Hudson bakery they've operated as a theater and arts space since 1993 -- and trying to charge through the chaos of planning the biggest Mussmann-Bruce production ever.

And there was no opening night to work out the bugs. This was it.

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The city clerk was there to watch them sign their marriage license at midnight, when the same-sex marriage law took effect. Hudson Mayor Richard Scalera spit out the two dozen words that would make it official as quickly as possible, ending with, "you are now legally married."

At midnight., they signed the marriage license and were pronounced married. The brides -- who walked down the aisle before a hooting, clapping audience -- were feeding each other cake by 12:03.

It was a rush for something that probably can't be validated as an official record with so many other couples launching midnight weddings around the state. But they would try. It's the kind of big thing they'd be apt to dive into, and it's why shortly after the same-sex marriage law was passed by the Legislature June 24, they got a call from Scalera asking if they would be ready for a midnight ceremony.

But at one point in the preparations things slowed down.

The emotions of it hit them at the rehearsal the day before. Linda couldn't speak when asked to repeat, "I, Linda, take you, Claudia," a lump forming behind the signature handkerchief she wears knotted around her neck.

They stood there, like two characters in a musical about to move into the big love song number, face-to-face with arms extended, grasping both hands. They looked into each other's eyes for several beats, the kind of long, direct gaze it's hard for most people -- even longtime lovers -- to sustain. Claudia, who's acted in two to three of Linda's shows a year for decades, bounced Linda's arms up and down trying to bring her back to delivering her line.

For years they've filled out forms and never knew what box to check when the question came to status. They weren't single. They weren't married, or divorced or widowed. They'd been together for decades, but they weren't spouses, at least not in the eyes of the state.

They were two women who fell in love in New York City in 1976, when Linda needed to move a bunch of stuff she'd acquired into her storefront avant-garde theater space and a mutual friend said Claudia, an actress who worked at a feminist newspaper, had a Volkswagen bus.

They're in their mid 60s now, so they say it's not easy to relay details of their first meeting the way so many newlyweds can, but there was an energy between them, and they just knew they were in it for good. They moved in together shortly afterward and though they swore doing theater together might ruin their romantic relationship, they soon realized it would be the place where it would grow.

"It was just like we slid into place," Claudia says. "We just fit."

They moved to Hudson in 1991 and slowly built an old warehouse in a rough part of the town into Time & Space Limited, an art house of sorts that Linda founded in New York City in 1973 and a place that would blossom to host independent films, opera broadcasts, youth programs and Mussmann-Bruce productions.

Linda, a writer and director, would hear Claudia speak as she wrote shows, tiny traces of growing up in Georgia still knitted into Claudia's voice. There is a way, Linda says, that Claudia expresses language that is beautiful. And when Claudia sits beside Linda and tells strangers "Linda is a genius. I know that I am prejudiced, but the woman in amazing," they're fawning words seen in other things, like the way she'd put her hands on Linda's hips to move her to the right spot during the wedding rehearsal.

A line of pictures runs down a wall in the space where all of the Mussmann-Bruce productions happen. So many are of Claudia on stage, singing and playing Napoleon with a feather boa wrapped around her neck. She has the wide-eyed high-cheeked smile of either a seasoned performer or a delighted child, and every time she flashes it, Linda's follows like a falling domino.

"I dream up the ideas, and she helps make them happen -- on stage, on the page and in our daily lives," Linda says.

The people who gravitate to TSL say the passion the couple has for each other translates into all the work they do, whether it's organizing arts programs, Linda's three unsuccessful campaigns for mayor or the fight they helped wage against a cement plant.

They are a constant presence at TSL, reminding volunteer and friend Connie Fitzmaurice of mom-and-pop grocery store owners who'd live in an apartment above their storefront and live and work in perfect synch.

Fitzmaurice's partner of 34 years died in 2009. Caught in the hell of little logistical things, like having to fight the cable company that wanted to terminate her account because the account was in her partner's name and because they didn't have any sort of legal relationship, she gave Linda and Claudia some advice: Get married if the day ever came when they could.

It's not as if it wasn't something they didn't want for themselves.

"Why would you not want us to have what you have?" Linda says. "I think it's very hard to look at us and say we're less than."

And so 35 years in, they rushed to the altar, like a young, moon-eyed couple, but ready to live and love the way they always have. It's just that now, things would be official. They'd have a box to check for the rest of the world.